| dc.description.abstract | Researcher engagement is said to improve collaboration between two parties, hence, improving
research outputs. Despite the enormous agricultural research studies, there has been low uptake
and ownership of research outputs by farming communities due to the limited engagement efforts
between farmers and researchers. This study aimed at designing a model to guide agricultural
project researchers in effectively engaging farming communities in study implementation.
We used pragmatism research philosophy approach to develop the knowledge about the study. We
also used mixed methods to establish requirements for the engagement strategies employed by
researcher, we administered a total of 570 questionnaires to 253 Bukedea and 317 to Lira district
households, which were selected using random sampling on a 5-scale Likert scale. Quantitative
data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) statistical software
package to calculate the mean, standard deviation and cross tabulations, thematic analysis for the
qualitative analysis. The findings were used to design a model to guide engagement. The model
was designed based on the principles of engagement, the effectiveness was assessed using online
questionnaires administered to 10 Makerere university researchers and 20 farmers from Bukedea
and Lira districts.
The study aimed at exploring the existing engagement strategies to establish challenges and
recommendations to enhance engagement. The results show that 45% farmers agree that
researchers have an understanding of the farming community needs, values as well as
communicating study goals and purpose to them, while 51% of researchers agree that they
communicate the study goals, purpose and objectives to farmers. Additionally, both farmers and
researchers agree that there is interaction between the two parties during study implementation.
However, 16% of farmers disagree with researcher having interactions with them. Overall, 20%
of farmers reported gaps in researcher engagement with them during study implementation while
73% of researchers agree to engaging farmers during study implementation. There was need to
address the challenges identified recommendations given from farmers and researcher. The
challenges and recommendations informed the FCRC design model using engagement principles.
The model was evaluated using a mobile application to prove its usability and usefulness.
Evaluation results show 80% of researchers agree that the FCRC model promotes interaction
between the researchers and key project stakeholders which allows for ownership of the project
activities and outputs. Usefulness of the model showed in the evaluation results as over 85% of
xvi
farmers strongly agree to actively participate in research activities to gain knowledge. One of the
farmer during a focus group discussion highlighted that “I am happy that we are at last going to
be involved at each stage of the project with that procedure adopted.”
We recommend evaluation of the model in other sectors for knowledge and information extraction,
extended training of researchers and farmers on the relevancy of the model on guiding knowledge
extraction and planning engagements. Similarly, we recommend translating the application to local
language for easy use by the local farmers and improve interaction between the farmers and the
researcher.
Finally, the future work to be done is to apply the model to other sectors besides agriculture,
translate the research guide to local languages, extend the evaluation to more participants and
beyond the study. Future work to extend the model to implementation phase as opposed to only
planning. | en_US |
